Pages

▼

Friday, August 15, 2008

Assumption 2008




From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

I. MARY'S MOTHERHOOD WITH REGARD TO THE CHURCH

Wholly united with her Son . . .

964 Mary's role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. "This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception up to his death";504 it is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion:


Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother's heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: "Woman, behold your son."505


965 After her Son's Ascension, Mary "aided the beginnings of the Church by her prayers."506 In her association with the apostles and several women, "we also see Mary by her prayers imploring the gift of the Spirit, who had already overshadowed her in the Annunciation."507

. . . also in her Assumption

966 "Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death."508 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:


In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.509




506 Lumen Gentium LG 69.
507 LG 59.
508 LG 59; cf. Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1950):DS 3903; cf. Rev 19:16.
509 Byzantine Liturgy, Troparion, Feast of the Dormition, August 15th.



If you click on the link to Munificentissimus Deus above, it will take you to the ex cathedra Apostolic Constitution on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I hope to see many of you at the Feast of the Assumption at Assumption Grotto today. Please check back throughout these next few days for pictures.

I am heading off to 6:30am Mass soon. I'll be photographing much throughout the day and like to have one Mass relatively photograph free, though I do plan on trying to capture an elevation shot.

MORE INFO


OTHER POSTS OF INTEREST

at